Best of Neighborhood News 8/29: Networking, empowering and healing at Because Black Life Conference

Along with a team of artists, organizers and educators, poet Keno Evol held the first Because Black Life Conference in the Twin Cities. The conference focused conversation around issues that impact black communities in our neighborhoods and making space for networking, healing and community building.

“Black thought, black people and Black concerns. This is a bridge for networking which we will leave, perhaps, with mentors and mentees. We want to have community engagement initiatives from our conversations. We want to engage community about a service and really be with community shaping this event as opposed to imposing an agenda. So, it’s a different sort of power relationship,” said Evol.

With a grant from Springboard for the Arts, a group of Lao American artists will create a pop-up exhibition called Laomagination: Transitions. The exhibit will be a workshop and presentation for community members to explore Lao traditions, folk arts, poetry, storytelling and more, celebrating this community and its presence in Minnesota.

“2018 is personally significant to me because it marks the 20th anniversary since I first moved to Minnesota,” said poet Bryan Thao Worra. “It’s also been 11 years since I first moved into North Minneapolis for work and community building with the local neighborhood organizations, the Lao Assistance Center and the refugees rebuilding their lives in the area. Kaysone Syonesa has also been a positive and engaging figure in these efforts as an artist with long ties to the area.”

As part of a new soul food wave in the Twin Cities, a new restaurant is opening in South Minneapolis called Funky Grits. The menu and setting are inspired by funk music, and the food, cooked by Chef Jordan Carlson, will have its own unique spin on classic soul items.

“This is the food that the people I grew up listening to were eating. The backbone of the food is the same as the basslines,” said owner Jared Brewington.

Tweets from TC Daily Planet

Today’s top stories

UMN student government reaffirms push to rename campus buildingsThe Minnesota Student Association released a letter in the wake of a decision that came after nearly a year-long contention over four University of Minnesota campus buildings named after figures with racist, anti-semitic pasts.

Bde Maka Ska is Lake Calhoun again, appeals court rulesOver one year ago, along with the support of the Hennepin County Board, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr reverted a Southwest Minneapolis lake to its original Dakotan name, “Bde Maka Ska,” meaning “white earth lake.” The lake was named after then-Vice President John C. Calhoun, a proponent of slavery and eventual ideologue of the Confederate south.

In case you missed it

UMN student government reaffirms push to rename campus buildingsThe Minnesota Student Association released a letter in the wake of a decision that came after nearly a year-long contention over four University of Minnesota campus buildings named after figures with racist, anti-semitic pasts. The state university’s governing body, the Board of Regents, voted 10-1 against the renaming of Coffman Union, Coffey Hall, Nicholson Hall and Middlebrook Hall, names which go as far back as 1851.

De’Vonna Pittman, author and CEO at The Haven Publishing, and Jasmine Tane’t Boudah, author of Mothering Through Pain and Suffering in Silence, teamed up last year to offer a space for black literature artists to showcase their work, make connections and express their creativity to a wide audience. This year the MBAE is back in a larger space to give Black authors a place to share their art and talk to the community.

For many immigrants with hopes of making a living off farming, owning and operating a farm can seem like an impossible task between startup costs, attaining Minnesota agricultural knowledge and finding a market for produce. The Minnesota Food Association (MFA) works to alleviate some of these challenges by offering an in-depth, hands-on farm training program for immigrants, refugees and other individuals from historically marginalized communities.

In 2015, the city of Minneapolis, with the help of 17 community organizations, continued its exploration and outreach for a North Minneapolis greenway, to help share information and collect feedback from community members.